Description

Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, Helen Grant's first teen novel The Vanishing of Katharina Linden follows a misfit teenager as she attempts to unravel the mystery of several strange disappearances in the small town of Bad Munstereifel. The Vanishing of Katharina Linden bridges the world of the traditional Grimm fairytale with the darker world of Angela Carter's adult fairytales.

On the day Katharina Linden disappears, Pia is the last person to see her. Terror is spreading through the town. How could a ten-year-old girl vanish in a place where everybody knows everybody else?

Pia is determined to find out what happened to Katharina.

But then the next girl disappears. . .

'For something so chilling, it is terrific entertainment' Sunday Times

'A strange, haunting modern fairy tale' John Connolly, author of The Book of Lost Things

The setting of the small German town of Bad Munstereifel, in Helen Grant's debut novel The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, is based on her own experience of emigrating there from England as a child. Her other darkly thrilling young adult novels, The Glass Demon and Wish Me Dead, are also available from Penguin.show more

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Review quote

"Both a wonderful first novel, and a strange, haunting modern fairytale, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is that rare beast: a book that reawakens in adults the childhood terror of the bogeyman, and confirms for children that the world is an infinitely stranger place than adults might like to pretend . . ." --John Connolly, New York Times author of The Reapers "The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is a stunning debut with a richly evoked setting, a smart sympathetic heroine, and the best opening line for a novel I've ever read. Helen Grant conjures a tale of evil in rural Germany that would make the Brothers Grimm jealous!' --Rick Riordan, New York Times author of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series

"Dark and deadly as the original Grimm's German folktales, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden hides its menace behind the exquisitely charming narrator, Pia, an unforgettable child of the first order." --Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child and Angels of Destructionshow more

About Helen Grant

Helen Grant was born in London. She read Classics at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and then worked in marketing for ten years in order to fund her love of travelling. In 2001 she and her family moved to Bad Munstereifel in Germany, and it was exploring the legends of this beautiful town that inspired her to write her first novel. She now lives in Brussels with her husband, her two children and a small German cat.show more

Rating details

2,480 ratings

3.64 out of 5 stars

5
17% (411)

4
42% (1,042)

3
32% (790)

2
8% (201)

1
1% (36)

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